‘Chief’ Meyers battled fast balls and prejudice in baseball

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Ontario nine that day, at least until Jack Meyers showed up.

It was 1902, and Ontario Athletic Club’s baseball team was being embarrassed again by a team from up the hill in Upland.

Ontario had been swept in an earlier five-game series by Upland, and there wasn’t much reason to believe this series was going to be any different.

After losing 36-12 in the first game, Ontario sent in a ringer ­— Meyers, a catcher and student at Sherman Institute in Riverside.

Meyers, who attended the Indian school because his mother was a member of the Cahuilla tribe, went behind the plate for Ontario in the second game, and things started to change.

“From the moment he donned the mask and the tummy protector, things assumed a rosy light,” according to an article nine years later in the Ontario Republican.

Ontario went on to sweep the next four games, making the 22-year-old catcher an immediate hero.

Meyers — known as Chief, the moniker given almost every player of Indian descent in those politically incorrect days — was just getting started in baseball.

After spending a few years in the minor leagues, Meyers debuted in 1909 with the New York Giants of legendary manager John McGraw. He was behind the plate for more than 200 games with one of baseball’s greatest pitchers, Christy Mathewson, on the mound. For a while, he roomed with Olympic hero and fellow Indian Jim Thorpe, a bench player during his four seasons with the Giants.

A decade after playing for Ontario, Meyers was the leading hitter on a Giants team that reached the World Series three straight years, 1911-13.

But in his struggle to get to the majors, Meyers continuously battled extreme anti-Indian prejudice, difficulties that bring to mind similar trials faced by future baseball legend Jackie Robinson.

As an Indian, Meyers often was not allowed to stay in hotels or eat in restaurants, especially in rural areas of the minor leagues. Even some of his minor-league teammates made it clear they hoped he would fail.

But such prejudice just made him work harder to reach the major leagues, and when he got there, he wasted no time.

From 1911 to 1913, Meyers finished the top 10 in balloting for the yearly Chalmers award, an early-day most valuable player vote. In 1912, he hit .358, second best in the National League, an improvement from a year before, when he was third at .332.

He was the first catcher in the modern era to hit for the cycle — a single, double, triple and home run in the same game. He struck out in less than 6 percent of his 2,834 official plate appearances. He hit .290 in 18 World Series games, though his teams lost all four series in which he played.

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Meyers, who died in San Bernardino in 1971 just shy of his 91st birthday, was a most intelligent man. He had spent some time studying at Dartmouth College and in off hours frequented museums and theaters while his teammates typically followed far-less-intellectual pursuits.

He had “A strong love of justice, a lightning sense of humor, a fund of general information that runs from politics to Plato ... and the self-contained, dignified poise that is the hallmark of good breeding,” wrote one reporter of Meyers. “He is easily the most remarkable player in the big leagues.”

Because he didn’t arrive in the majors until his late 20s, Meyers’ time there was relatively brief. After leaving the Giants after the 1915 season, he played for Brooklyn, including the 1916 World Series, and ended his major league career with Boston of the National League in 1917.

After playing and coaching in the minors, Meyers returned to the Inland Empire and became a police chief with the Mission Indian Agency. He also worked with the Department of Interior as a supervisor.

Lawrence S. Ritter, in his 1966 book, “The Glory of Their Times,” quoted Meyers talking about the difficulty of being an Indian in a white world. He especially objected to the portrayal of Indians in motion pictures and television.

“In those days, you know, the Indian was in the position of a minority group,” Meyers said. “Still is, for that matter.”